Bio
- Member of Parliament for the Ontario riding of Timmins—James Bay since 2004
- NDP shadow cabinet critic for Indigenous and Northern Affairs
- NDP caucus chair
- Vice-chair of the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs
- Former School Board Trustee in Timmins
- Former activist for the homeless and musician
- Author of seven books
- 54 years old
Housing Policy
- Work with other levels of government to provide local solutions to the housing crisis
- Create a National Low Income Housing Benefit and an Affordable Housing Initiative Credit
- More funding for existing and new social housing
- Promote co-operative housing
- Commit to ending homelessness
- Expand the Homelessness Partnering Strategy
Indigenous Policy
- Create an ombudsperson position for indigenous children
- Would have an independent audit and investigation into Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada and Health Canada’s indigenous programs
- Work with the PBO and Indigenous leadership to try and have indigenous people take more control over their services
- Actually respect s.35 of the charter and adopt UNDRIP
- Make the government more accountable to indigenous people in terms of indigenous affairs
Environmental Policy
- Create a national carbon budget and a national carbon budget council
- Create a crown agency to promote sustainable development
- Eliminate subsidies in the oil and gas sector
Labour Policy
- Increase the max Working Income Tax Benefit to $1000 & make it available to full-time workers
- Raise federal minimum wage to $15/hour, and index it to inflation
- Ensuring federal assistance to business creates and preserves jobs in Canada
- Repeal Bill C-27 to protect pensions
- Go after corporate tax havens
- Reform Canada’s labour laws, include new anti-scab legislation
- Reform and expand Canada’s skills development programs
- Lower the required hours for EI eligibility to 360
- Expand parental benefits to 70% of salary up to the maximum insurable earnings as well as lower the eligibility requirements
- Pharmacare
Urban Policy
- Make housing a right
- Improve public transit and intercity transportation
- Improve environmental standards for construction, fight urban sprawl
- Develop local food security strategies to fight hunger
- Provide better funding for ESL classes, employment assistance, and other services for new Canadians
- Make cities more accessible for individuals with disabilities
- Better fund science and academic research
- Eliminate tuition for post-secondary education
- Set standards for mental health and sexual assault policies
- Eliminate loan interest on student loans
- Provide more funding for PSSSP for indigenous students
- Ensure access to high speed internet and bringing costs down
- Create a resale right for artists, enabling them to collect royalties from resale of their works, and income tax averaging for artists
- Create a Neighbourhood Ownership Program and Fund to set up democratically governed neighbourhood corporations
- Community Benefits Agreements
- Establish new governance frameworks for our cities to give them more of a say in policies that impact them
Party Policy
- Ensure communication between the party and the riding associations through on the ground organizers and regional councils
- Create gender balanced, permanent, deliberative, and democratically elected policy development bodies much like citizens’ assemblies
- Commit to frequent issue based tours to different parts of the country in order to remain connected with the grassroots
- Help riding associations fundraise
- Respect Quebec
- Work towards reconciliation via permanent party structures to ensure Indigenous voice are always heard
Economic Policy
- Give workers of a closing business the right to purchase their business and restructure it as a worker co-operative
- Provide worker co-operatives with capital funding to make up for the lack of EI
- Implement social purchasing for government entities
- Invest in the Canadian Co-operative Investment Fund
- Create a Community Economic Development Tax Credit to stimulate locally owned and administered finance
- Harmonize the federal and provincial legislation and regulations around co-operatives
- Support innovative new co-operative forms
- Create a new Co-operative Development Initiative to provide technical assistance, small capital loans, and business support to co-operatives through the regional development agencies
For more information please visit http://www.charlieangusndp.ca/